Hasan Piker Florencia Tan Jun/Web Summit via Sportsfile via Getty Images Logo text Hasan Piker has sued conservative commentator Scott Jennings for defamation, accusing the CNN contributor of falsely stating that Piker endorsed lynchings.
In an August podcast, Jennings played clips of Piker from 2024 when he was reacting to a debate between two Black political commentators, one in which the Twitch streamer sarcastically said “I want to go back to lynching” to mock nostalgia for an era before the civil rights movement. Jennings told listeners that Piker was “out there calling for Black voters to be lynched” and had a “plan of returning our country to lynchings.”
In the lawsuit, Piker says Jennings intentionally misrepresented his statements to make it appear as if he supported lynchings. He seeks at least $72.5 million.
“Jennings did not merely mischaracterize something Mr. Piker said,” states the complaint filed on Tuesday in federal court. “He took a false, fabricated, and manipulated video of Mr. Piker, added a made-up quotation that Mr. Piker never uttered, and then made accusations that went beyond even what the manipulated footage purported to show.”
According to the complaint, Jennings doctored the footage in the video to remove the debate that Piker had been analyzing. Jennings also omitted the words “he said,” which introduced Piker’s caricature of the commentator he was criticizing, the lawsuit says. Piker says most viewers on his stream understood the comments as sarcasm.
“A full review of Piker’s unedited remarks confirms Jennings falsely claimed Piker said he was in favor of bringing back lynchings,” the complaint states, referring to findings from Snopes, an independent fact-checker that looked into the incident. “In the original stream, Piker’s remarks on lynchings were sarcastic reactions to a user’s chat comment and opinions expressed by someone else in a separate video.”
The lawsuit argues Jennings’ comments were calculated to provoke outrage as the commentator tries to curry favor with President Trump amid chatter that Jennings could be named White House press secretary.
In August, lawyers for Piker demanded that Jennings identify the false statements to his listeners, according to the complaint. They never received a response, the lawsuit alleges.
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